The Ultimate getURL for php

<?php
function getURL($url,$fields=null,$method=null,$file=null){
    // author   = Ighor Toth <igtoth@gmail.com>
    // required:
    //      url     = include http or https 
    // optionals:
    //      fields  = must be array (e.g.: 'field1' => $field1, ...)
    //      method  = "GET", "POST"
    //      file    = if want to download a file, declare store location and file name (e.g.: /var/www/img.jpg, ...)
    // please crete 'cookies' dir to store local cookies if neeeded

    // do not modify below
    $useragent = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko';
    $timeout= 240;
    $dir = dirname(__FILE__);
    $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"] = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"] ?? '127.0.0.1';
    $cookie_file    = $dir . '/cookies/' . md5($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']) . '.txt';
    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);    
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $cookie_file);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie_file);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_ENCODING, "" );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_AUTOREFERER, true );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, 10 );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $useragent);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, 'http://www.google.com/');
    if($file!=null){
        if (!curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $file)){ // Handle error
                die("curl setopt bit the dust: " . curl_error($ch));
        }
        //curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $file);
        $timeout= 3600;
    }
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, $timeout );
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, $timeout );
    if($fields!=null){
        $postvars = http_build_query($fields); // build the urlencoded data
        if($method=="POST"){
            // set the url, number of POST vars, POST data
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, count($fields));
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $postvars);
        }
        if($method=="GET"){
            curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'GET');
            $url = $url.'?'.$postvars;
        }
    }
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    $content = curl_exec($ch);
    if (!$content){
        $error = curl_error($ch);
        $info = curl_getinfo($ch);
        die("cURL request failed, error = {$error}; info = " . print_r($info, true));
    }
    if(curl_errno($ch)){
        echo 'error:' . curl_error($ch);
    } else {
        return $content;        
    }
    curl_close($ch);
}
?>